Wargaming

Larry Irons's Wargaming Page

Welcome to Larry Irons's Wargaming Page!

Larry Irons has been a wargamer since he was ten years old. He still is active in wargaming. He is a member (since 1979) and current President of Colorado Military Historians (CMH), an organization that has been in existence since 1965. Larry is also very interested in the application of computers to wargaming. Larry authored and published a set of rules for the Seven Years War period called Linear Tactics. If you are interested in these rules, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/lintac. Larry is developing a web-based wargame campaign system. Watch http://www.warnetonline.com for more info.

Larry's current miniature wargaming interests include Seven Years' War, Thirty Years' War, and Ancients. Recently Larry has been playing Carnage & Glory by Nigel Marsh, a computer moderated set of miniature wargame rules and a series of games from Computer Strategies, Pty. from Bronte, NSW, Australia written by Clinton Reilly.

Larry has written an article on smoothbore musketry. This article looks at some technical aspects of rate of fire and casualty rates caused by smoothbore muskets in the period 1550 to 1840.

Miniature Wargame Figures

30 Years' War - Larry has French, Imperialist, and Turkish 25 mm Armies to play under DBR and Renaissance Warfare.

Seven Years' War - Larry has the following Russian units: 8 line battalions, 3 grenadier battalions, a Pandour battalion, a dragoon regiment, cuirassier regiment, and a hussar regiment. He has a mix of Hessians, British, and Austrians. All in 25 mm.

American Revolution - Larry has many battalions of American militia and continentals, as well as British, Hessians, and Tories. All in 25 mm.

Napoleonics - Larry has played Napoleonics for many years, starting with a large collection of Airfix figures when he was a teenager. He now is building British and French armies for fighting a Peninsular Campaign. Again, all in 25 mm.

Ancients - Larry's first metal figures were ancient Romans. He has Republican Romans, Imperial Romans, Late Romans, Successor, Palmyran, Later Hoplite Greek, and Carthaginians; all in 25 mm. Larry has a 15 mm Indian and Gallic Armies (Go Barbarians!). All are mounted for DBM and Ancient Warfare rules.

Modern Naval - Larry doesn't have any ship models, having always relied on cardboard cutouts. But Larry loves pre-dreadnought, WWI, WWII, and modern naval warfare. But he is still a lousy swimmer. He has played many different rule sets, including Jane's, Fletcher Pratt, General Quarters, Harpoon and home rules.

American Civil War Naval - Larry has a dozen ACW ironclads. These are 1:1200.

Napoleonic Sail - Larry has two dozen sailing ships at 1:1200 scale.

Ancient Naval - Larry has scratch-built ancient galleys (1:600) for the 400 BC to 100 AD period.

Board Wargames

Larry has all kinds of board wargames. His first was Gettysburg by Avalon Hill back in the 1960s. Larry especially enjoys multi-player games, such as Pax Britannica, Diplomacy, and railroad games to name a few.

Computer Wargames

Larry has always been a computer aficionado. He bought his first computer in 1978. He also bought his first computer wargame in 1978, called Starship Orion. He now enjoys multi-player networked computer games. He can be found on the Internet gaming away, such as Civ III, Red Baron 3D, Age of Empires II, Starfleet Command, and Railroad Tycoon II. Larry believes that computers can prevent cheating humans and provide true fog of war. Larry has been playing Carnage & Glory which is an excellent way to meld wargaming and computers.

Currently he is playing a series of games from Computer Strategies, Pty. from Bronte, NSW, Australia written by Clinton Reilly. There are 10 sets that cover the historical period from Ancients to WWII. These games run under the MS Windows environment.

Recent Gaming

Larry won 1st place in the 15mm Ancient Warfare tournament at Historicon 2004 using his Galatians.

Larry's Military Roots

Sue Irons has been researching Larry's genealogy and found that his ancestors were very active in the military. Larry had the honor of receiving an appointment to and attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Larry's father fought in World War 2 in New Guinea and the Philippines in the 32nd Infantry Division. Larry's grandfather, Clyde Irons, Sr., was in the Army Flying Corps during World War I and served in France. Coincidentally, Larry is a pilot, too. Larry's great grandfather fought in Cuba during the Spanish American War. Larry had another great grandfather that fought in the Russo-Japanese War serving in a Russian cavalry regiment raised from Volga Germans.

Larry has an ancestor that was a company commander in a Connecticut regiment during the American Revolution. Larry also has two ancestors that were officers in His Majesty's British Army, serving during the early eighteenth century. Larry found that one of his ancestors was Sir William Pole (ca. 1560). Through the Poles, Larry is a direct descendant of some renown royal personages including Edward III, Edward I (Longshanks), William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, and Clovis. There is a possibility that Charlemagne is a direct descendant of Constantine the Great and Phillip II of Macedonia. No wonder Larry likes to make war and play geopolitical games.

Some other links to web sites where Larry has interests are:

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